Sun shining on Avow, Gatsby in pair of statebred stakes
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A gathering of Florida-breds from the pared-down series of races once trumpeted as the Sunshine Millions will take place Saturday at Gulfstream Park with a pair of $75,000 stakes as co-features.
The Sunshine Filly and Mare Turf (race 9) and Sunshine Sprint (race 10) will anchor an 11-race card that starts at 12:10 p.m. Eastern.
The Sunshine Millions was inaugurated to great fanfare by Frank Stronach in January 2004 as a major-network televised, cross-country series that matched Florida-breds and California-breds in big-money races at Gulfstream and Santa Anita. Fatally flawed in its grandiosity, the event beat a steady fade through the years, and now its remnants exist only as modest January features both here and at Santa Anita.
Two more Sunshine events, the $75,000 Classic and $75,000 Turf, will be run next Saturday at Gulfstream. The following Saturday, Jan. 28, will be one of the biggest days of the Championship meet, highlighted by the Grade 1, $3 million Pegasus World Cup and six other graded races.
Cooler weather (a high of 60) but no rain is in the Saturday forecast. Five of the 11 races are scheduled for turf, which figures once again to be firm.
Sunshine Filly and Mare Turf
Avow is the likely favorite in this one-mile turf race, partly because of her connections but also because she has done little wrong thus far. The 4-year-old filly will be making her first start on turf after beginning her career with two wins from three starts on the Gulfstream main track.
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“Hopefully, she’ll handle the surface switch,” said her Hall of Fame trainer, Todd Pletcher. “She’s looking for two turns and more distance. It’s a Florida-bred race, so that helps.”
Irad Ortiz Jr., the leading jockey at the Championship meet that began Dec. 26, will be aboard Avow when breaking from post 2 in a field of nine. From her eight opponents, maybe the top threat is Sweet Dani Girl (post 4, Joel Rosario), who returns from a layoff of more than eight months for owner-trainer Carlo Vaccarezza when trying both turf and two turns for the first time.
“She bled pretty bad in her last race,” Vaccarezza said in reference to the Grade 2 Eight Belles at Churchill Downs in May. “We gave her plenty of time off to clear her up, and so far everything has been going in the right direction. She’s training really well for this. She’s very versatile, and her breezes at Palm Meadows have been very good.”
More proven entities at this distance and surface, albeit at lower class levels, include Crystal Coast (post 6, Luis Saez), a last-out winner of a first-level statebred allowance, and Sugar Fix (post 7, Tyler Gaffalione), whose 8-3-2-0 record over the Gulfstream turf came before she was claimed in Kentucky in September.
Sonar, Don’t Get Khozy, Extravagant Rosie, Lookinlikeaqueen, and Mona Stella round out the lineup.
Sunshine Sprint
Gatsby earned an eye-catching 103 Beyer Speed Figure in winning this six-furlong race last January for trainer Carlos David. Something in that neighborhood surely would work just fine Saturday, assuming the form of the 5-year-old Arindel homebred comes back around as strongly hinted when he was a close third five weeks ago in a statebred stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.
“That was a good performance at Tampa,” David said.
Gatsby will break from post 2 with Saez aboard as one of seven older horses in here. He’s likely to use a familiar stalking style when saving ground to try to overtake likely front-runners Lightening Larry (post 1, Jose Morelos), best known for winning the Grade 3 Chick Lang last May at Pimlico, and longshot Boca Boy (post 6, Jose Ortiz).
A second David entry, Legal Deal (post 5, Paco Lopez), is one of the fringe players. The 6-year-old gelding has been first or second in 15 of 27 starts – including each of his last four races – although he was a distant fourth behind Gatsby in this race last year. He was narrowly beaten here in a Nov. 13 allowance, after which “I gave him a little break,” David said. “We brought him back and he’s feeling really, really good.”
The field is completed by Unsociable, Legends Can’t Die, and Cajun’s Magic.
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